A look into online profiles and how much they affect employers’ decisions in choosing new hires.

by Lory Martinez

Spring Cleaning your online presence

This week we’ve done a number of stories on online profiles. And now, as graduation and the real world fast approach, it’s time to clean up,( If you haven’t already) that online persona. Warning: A virtual suit and tie may be required.

In my recent interview with avid social media enthusiast, Jessie Rubin, we both noted that social media is who we are. As the generation that both created and produced the social media boom, we are indeed defined by our presence on the internet. Ten years ago, email and instant messaging had only just begun to flourish, slowly collecting a kind of cyberhistory that has evolved and expanded into the myriad of platforms we use to communicate and express ourselves today.

Remember AOL instant messenger? Myspace? Remember the days of funny email addresses we made up for those accounts?

Now as kids grow up in this “living yearbook” world, they have to be careful, because, in the same way an embarrassing photo from high school can come back to haunt our parents once they are found in the attic somewhere, our “YOLO” moments can come back to bite us. And those are way easier to find.

So here are a few tips I’ve collected throughout my own years of experience with social media. Special thanks to those who have given me this professional advice and much more over the years.

How to clean up the digital you:

Check your privacy settings on all social platforms. Make sure you have to approve things before anyone can post them in association with you. We all ignore those emails from Facebook about updated privacy settings, but be sure to at least check your own settings

Google+ is a useful tool. Even though a lot of people say it will never become popular in terms of social networking, you can at least help employers easily find you via Google search, and with a comprehensive profile, you can even direct them to your work.

Get a LinkedIn, if you don’t already have one. Even if all your connections are classmates, they will soon have jobs in the real world, just like you, and can help you later on.

Look through your photos you’re tagged in, make sure the photos represent the best version of you, the one that would make an employer think, “Yeah, I would definitely trust him/her with important tasks.”

Have a fancy profile photo or two. You should have a photo in a nice outfit for your job search profiles including Google + and LinkedIn. Keep it casual and fun for your other profiles, but maybe leave the beer can out, at your discretion.

Opinions are opinions are opinions. Yes, your opinion matters. Yes, it’s just as valid as any other. But be weary of ranting in public. The internet is vast like the ocean but it can also be as tiny as a small puritan town. Don’t be Hester Prynne. Gossip travels fast and so do viral posts, so make sure you don’t end up like this guy.

Don’t over-do it. Don’t go deleting your entire profile history and consider starting from scratch. Starting over is fine, but if there are no photos, or posts of you from before last week, it will be as if you never existed before last week. Don’t lose yourself, or your “digital” self in the process. It’s about cleaning up what’s there, not replacing it entirely. As the saying goes, “Work with what you’ve got.”

LinkedIn recently celebrated its 10th birthday last Sunday. LinkedIn, sometimes referred to as “the Facebook of networking,” allows people to network with those they have worked with before, or those they would like to work with in the future.

It also allows users to build an online resume, easily accessible to potential recruiters. There is also a premium account offered. Users can pay for a different facet of LinkedIn: Business, for business professionals, Talent for recruiters, JobSeeker for the unemployed (or the curious employed), andSales for sales professionals. There are over 200 million LinkedIn users worldwide.

In July 2011, LinkedIn launched a new feature to the website: posting job openings directly on their website, and allowing users to apply from LinkedIn, linking their LinkedIn resume to their application.

Forbes once called it “far and away, the most advantageous social networking tool available to job seekers and business professionals today.”

But enough with all the glitz and glamour. What does the data say? Perfect data is a little hard to find, as LinkedIn hasn’t traditionally published much about hiring statistics. Let’s parse through what we can:

-Back in 2010, a report was released that found that 50% of Fortune 500 Companies use LinkedIn.

-LinkedIn gets almost six times the number of job views than Twitter, and almost 12 times that of Facebook. LinkedIn also gets more than 8 times the job applications than Facebook, and 3 times more than Twitter.

–Roughly half of LinkedIn users have anywhere from 0 to 500 1st degree connections, but the average LinkedIn recruiter has around 616, and 28% of LinkedIn recruiters have over a thousand connections!

-Of recruiters who use social networks to find potential employees, 48% use only LinkedIn, but only 1% solely use Facebook or Twitter.

-Potential growth is also a factor in networking. To double one’s network on Twitter, it takes only 2.7 months, or roughly 81 days.For LinkedIn, 7.6 months. For Facebook, a whopping 33.9 months (or just under three years).

– Traditionally, the most successful job postings and hirings seem to be sales. As of August 2011, there were about 6.1 million active members on LinkedIn who identified as working in sales. Academics, administrators, engineers, and IT specialists trail in the 4 to 5 million range.

-LinkedIn does have a number of immediately obvious advantages over Facebook and Twitter; namely, no teenage-angst, there’s little spam (as users are trying to create a likable persona), no vague relationship statuses, no birthdays to remember, changes to the user interface are fluid and appealing, but, most importantly, no Pokes.

-It also would appear to lend itself very well to the newest generation of job hunters: us. Having grown up with social networking as much a part of our lives as the duck and cover method was to the Baby Boomers. Sure, for every suave, future New Yorker columnist, there are half a dozen duck-facers, but growing up with “the game” from AOL Instant Messenger to Google Plus, but we seem to have a distinct advantage over the previous generation. As we mature, we learn how to conduct ourselves in the “real world,” but we also draw upon what we have learned.

It’s May, and with it comes the end of another semester here at Binghamton. However, that by no means signifies an end to work. Today we’ll be talking about things to keep in mind for seniors who are in the midst of the job search.

For this show, I conducted a special interview with Jessie Rubin, a graduating senior who has done a number of internships over the course of her college career. She hopes to work in journalism after graduation and has worked for quite a few “big-name” places. I spoke with her about how much her online presence in social media affected her in her job and internship search.

Be sure to check it out at 4 pm on whrwfm.org or, if you’re in the Binghamton area, on 90.5fm Binghamton.